Raiyu 頼瑜 / 賴瑜 (1226–1304) — Kamakura-period Japanese Shingon scholar of the Daigo-ji 醍醐寺 and Mt. Kōya 高野山 lineages, the founder of the Shingi-Shingon 新義真言 reformist movement that established Negoro-ji 根來寺 as a major Esoteric scholastic center independent of the older Kōya / Tō-ji establishment.
His birth-year of 1226 is firmly established by the autograph colophons of his own works: at the end of fascicle 1 of his Dàrìjīng shū zhǐxīn chāo (KR6j0667, T59n2217), composed at Mt. Kōya’s Jōrokudō Hashibō in Bun’ei 11 = 1274 CE, he gives his age as 49; at the end of fascicle 11 of the same work, composed at Mt. Kōya’s Denpō-in in Kenji 1 = 1275 CE, he gives his age as 50. These traditional reckonings (一歳 = year of birth) are consistent with the standard 1226–1304 lifedates.
His extant works in the Buddhist canon include many works on the Dàrì-jīng and Vajraśekhara corpora, the Lǐ-qù cycle, the Mañjuśrī and eighteen-mudrā ritual traditions, the Mahāyāna doctrinal-distinctions, and various other Shingon scholastic topics:
- Dàrì jīng shū zhǐxīn chāo 大日經疏指心鈔 (KR6j0667, T59n2217) — a 16-fascicle commentary on Yīxíng’s Dàrìjīng shū.
- Zhūzōng jiàolǐ tóngyì shì 諸宗教理同異釋 (B0181 / T2528) — comparative-doctrinal exposition of Shingon vis-à-vis the other Mahāyāna schools.
- Shíbādào kǒujué 十八道口決 (T2529) — eighteen-stage ritual oral-transmission.
- Yějīn kǒujué chāo 野金口決鈔 (T2530), Yětāi kǒujué chāo 野胎口決鈔 (T2531) — Vajradhātu / Garbhadhātu (Vajra-/Tathāgata-) field oral-transmission.
- Hùmó kǒujué 護摩口決 (T2532) — homa fire-offering oral-transmission.
- Jīnjiè fāhuì chāo 金界發惠抄 (T2533), Tāizàng rùlǐ chāo 胎藏入理鈔 (T2534) — recorded (記) Vajra-/Garbha-realm wisdom-derivation notes.
- Bócǎo zǐ kǒujué 薄草子口決 (T2535) — “thin-grass child” oral-transmission.
- Mì chāo wèndá 祕鈔問答 (T2536) — secret notes of question-and-answer.
His scholarship represents the late-Kamakura Shingon scholastic synthesis — the systematic reorganization of the Heian Shingon transmissions in light of the medieval Japanese Buddhist intellectual ferment. Raiyu’s main theological contribution is the Shingi-Shingon reformist position that distinguishes Mahāvairocana as the active (加持身) preaching-body and the substantial (本地身) principle-body, against the standard Tō-ji and Daigo-ji position that the principle-body itself preaches. This distinction became the foundational doctrinal commitment of the Shingi-Shingon school, today represented by the Buzan-ha and Chizan-ha branches.
The catalog meta for KR6j0667 gives his name as 頼瑜 (the Japanese-style form); DILA gives 賴瑜 (the standard sinographic form). Both refer to the same person; this note uses 頼瑜 as the canonical filename (the catalog form).
Source: DILA Buddhist Person Authority A001828; the autograph colophons of T59n2217; standard Japanese-Shingon biographical sources.